That’s going to result in (depending on the number of records in your event log) a long scrolling list similar to this:

More information than you really wanted, or needed? Then use the -newest parameter, and get back only the last x number of events recorded in the log. For example, this command retrieves the last three events written to the System event log:

Index : 5811
EntryType : Error
EventID : 29
Message : The time provider NtpClient is configured to acquire time from one or more
time sources, however none of the sources are currently accessible.
No attempt to contact a source will be made for 59 minutes.
NtpClient has no source of accurate time.
Category : (0)
CategoryNumber : 0
ReplacementStrings : {59}
Source : W32Time
TimeGenerated : 5/13/2006 9:42:22 AM
TimeWritten : 5/13/2006 9:42:22 AM

You can also pipe data through the Where-Object cmdlet to return a subset of events. For example, this command retrieves only those events in the Windows PowerShell event log that have an EventID equal to 403:

Here’s a nifty little command, one that retrieves all the events in the Windows PowerShell event log, then uses the Group-Object cmdlet to group those events by EventID. In other words, the command tallies up the total number of events for each ID (for example, two events with the EventID 300 occurred, six events with the EventID 400 occurred, etc.). That data is then piped through the Sort-Object cmdlet to provide results sorted by EventID. Here’s the command: